Abstract
From late February of 2020 onwards SARS‐CoV‐2 pandemic engraved a memorable impasse on humanity. It is a wishful thinking that such history should not be repeated as long as the sun and moon shall endure. In view of an aforesaid conundrum, here we present a rationale for withering away a plausible Antibiotic‐Resistant Bacterial Pathogen (ARBP) elicited pandemic. Herd immunity is defined as when ~70% to 90% of a population is immune to an infectious disease providing indirect protection to those who are immunocompetent (herd protection) and to those who are not immune to that specific pandemic event(disease(s)). R(0) is an estimate of contagiousness which is derived from human behavior and biological characteristics of pathogens and time. However, it is not a measure of the severity of an infectious disease or dissemination of a pathogen's spread through a population. R(0) value(s) for the same disease from the past endemic or epidemic or pandemic events is not valid for a current event(s) as aforesaid metrics are subject to time, location, population metrics and genotype/phenotype of the pathogen(s), modes of transmission, and sessional variations. Also, the etiologic the potential of the infectious agent(s) being passed from infected patient to other uninfected and/or infected human/animal host (contagiousness, the transmissibility of pathogens) (PMID: 30560777). An outbreak of infectious disease is expected to prevail if R(0) is >1 and ebb if R(0) is<1 (J Math Biol. 1990; 28:365). The primary factors that define R(0) value are: a. the time duration of contagiousness (transmissibility of the diseases by direct or indirect contact with an infected person) after an individual is infected, b. the likelihood of infection per contact between a susceptible person and c. the rate of contact (number of times of an infectious person or vector (a live organism(s) or inanimate object as a tool to transfer the pathogen) with another person (St. Meth. Med Res. 1993;2:23). Other contributing factors for determining the R(0) values could be, the etiologic agent, host, environmental factors (temperature, drought, long winters, adverse weather patterns such as a hurricane), public health resources(availability toilets vs open defecation, portable water vs water reservoirs, water wells, slums, open drainage, lack of sewage treatment plant, lack of water processing facility for potable water supply, heavy metals, arsenic, fluoride contamination in water supply, the policy environment (absence decision‐making authorities / absence of civic bodies‐elected) the contact rate, including population density, social organization (e.g., integrated vs. segregated), seasonality, human social behavior, organizational behavior(s), and innate genetic & biol char (L‐phase/form bacteria), of specific pathogens. (Vaccine. 1992; 10:928). The ultimate goal of vaccination campaigns are to minimize the percentage of the population susceptible and/or at risk for that specific infectious disease(s) where the R to <1, and achieve immunity for the uninfected or infected but asymptomatic the patient which is otherwise referred to as “Herd Immunity” or “Head Protection”.